It's not exactly a shocker, but does still serve to confirm just what interests actually drive American foreign policy - and no it has nothing to do with "sticking up for human rights" or "punishing rogue regimes".

In fact a regime can literally lure a prominent journalist to its embassy, murder him and chop him up into pieces, and then cart the body out of a foreign country — as the fast mounting evidence increasingly confirms in the case of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi — and the US may not so much as bat and eyelash.

President Trump told "Fox News Night" on Wednesday that he wants to know what happened to Khashoggi but expressed reluctance when it comes to blocking arms sales to the kingdom.

"I think that would be hurting us," Trump said.

"We have jobs, we have a lot of things happening in this country. We have a country that's doing probably better economically than it's ever done before."